Building a desk

We are homeschooling Melanie and Alayna this year. They can't wait for school to start. Their first day will be September 4th. Yesterday, Grandpa Dave helped us build a desk using a counter top and shelving. I'll post a picture later, when we get it all set up. Here is Josiah "helping" his daddy put a few final screws in last night.

Trip to Potter Park Zoo

Thursday, we went to Lansing to do some shopping. We also took in the sights at Potter Park Zoo. It was small and only took about 2-3 hours to tour, but it fit perfectly for our time schedule. I don't understand why, but the kids always like to get in with the goats.

This is an eagle owl -- the largest type of owl in the world. He was perched in his cage sleeping. During his sleep, he would open his mouth really wide several times. We wondered if he was dreaming about eating a mouse.

Here's momma kangaroo Esther and her little joey Josiah.

OK, who was playing with the paint? The mandrills are quite colorful and were fun to watch.

The coral reef exhibit was beautiful. It is so fascinating to see God's creation displayed in vivid colors.

Tomato Tuesday

We started with 2 five gallon buckets of tomatoes from our garden.

Cooked them down.

Put them through the juicer.

End Result - 9 Quarts of Juice

Horses

For the last couple years, we have been purchasing beef from a farmer near Hudson, MI. He invited us to come down to his farm today, and offered to let the kids ride one of his horses. (The meat we get is cow meat, not horse meat ... in case you needed some clarification.)

Melanie quickly learned to "steer" the horse, and was able to ride the horse around some barrels without being led.

Alayna led the horse (named Ice) back to the stall. The farmer told them to pat the horse and tell him he did a good job, so that is what she is doing here.

We couldn't get Josiah to get on the horse, but he had fun climbing fences and playing with the dogs.

Corn

Last week we froze 3 bushels of corn. Well, not quite three bushels, because we ate quite a bit of it as well. Even Alayna, who eats no vegetables except pizza sauce, ate 3 ears of corn for supper!
You can tell we were pretty busy, because only one picture was taken of the process.

Blueberries

It was fun spending time together as a family picking blueberries -- a lot more fun than picking strawberries, that's for sure! The biggest challenge was to make sure Alayna wasn't eating all the ones she picked! :) Even Josiah could pick berries from the comfort of his stroller.

Esther ended up freezing 9 bags of berries, making a couple blueberry snack cakes, and a pie.

First attempt to break the summer slump ...

After Camp Meeting, we enjoyed having Esther's sister, Sherilyn, and her family visit us for a few days. Her husband Doyle, plays trombone in a group called Cornerstone Brass. They put on an excellent concert at our church. Following the concert, we celebrated Doyle and Sherilyn's birthdays.

The cousins had fun playing and posing for pictures.

I am always amazed at how much stuff Doyle can pack in a van! Everything is loaded, and sad goodbyes were exchanged. See you again at Christmas!!

P.S. For those who saw Sherilyn's request several posts back ... we had a few tomatoes ripe, so she was able to have her grilled chicken and fresh tomatoes.